This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Heart failure is a leading cause of death in the general population. Rabbit models are important in providing insights into the factors contributing to heart failure. Previous experiments have indicated that: rectilinear waves, governed by reaction-diffusion partial differential equations, can become unstable and break up, even in perfectly homogeneous tissue, due to electrical instabilities. Current work aims to develop better models to describe the molecular interactions using reaction-diffusion PDE's using rabbit heart as the modeling system.